First order of business was the wonderful shopping market Saturday morning right out Julia's and Tony's front door in Antwerp. It was a bustling city of vendors, each hawking something more delicious. I could have spent all day there and been happy.
After originally discussing Rotterdam for the weekend, we discovered places to stay were more available in the Hague a short half hour away. So we set out on Saturday after the market to hit both cities over the weekend. Unfortunately we got caught in some kind of road closure and didn't make it into our AirBnB joint in the Hague until 5:00. That left plenty of time to walk around and see the city but not any time for the museums. The city was compact, with a sweet palace in the middle devoted to the Williams. As we were walking around town, admiring the palace and central square, we ran smack dab into a food festival. Food trucks were lined up under the trees in a park with a live band at the end. We also saw the tail end of a Chinese festival, complete with a dragon and dancing panda packing up as we walked in. The food festival was fun and delicious for dinner. 
We spent the rest of the evening at the bar owned by our BnB hosts. It's a cozy pub with surprisingly decent food prepared in a tiny kitchen and over 80 different gins! We had very colorful neighbors at the bar who helped us stay up later than most of us had in a long time. |
| famous Rotterdam architecture The Pencil and Cube Houses |
The next morning was off to Rotterdam. Rotterdam is often overlooked as the smaller, younger sibling to the more famous Amsterdam. And, wouldn't you know it, we run into another food festival! This time it was more gourmet food sales versus the street food style festival we encountered in the Hague. What are the chances we hit two food festivals in two cities in two days? To top off the foodie weekend, we had booked a 'Bike and Bite' tour of Rotterdam. It was fabulous. Paul was knowledgeable, patient and fun leading us around town to gaze at architecture and pointing out fun places to eat.
Rotterdam is clearly proud of its architecture and has unique buildings all over town. The city is growing very quickly too, and I expect the population to cross the 1 million mark soon simply based on the pace of construction that's visible around town.
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| The central train station |
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| Architecture everywhere you look |
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| This is my kind of bike tour :) |
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| There are so many bikes that they have to stack them in the parking garages |
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| Santa Clause was too controversial for the sculpture park |
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| The Swan bridge |
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| Julie, Julia and Tony in the best market ever |
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| They sure grow them big in the Netherlands |
We head back to Antwerp where Julia and Tony have to go back to work the next morning and I hole up in their apartment to do trip planning. Julia and Tony graciously let me hog their internet and use their gym pass while I was there. It was nice to be domestic for a couple of days. And, despite efforts by everybody involved, I finally ruled out closing on the refinance of my house because Wells Fargo just cannot get its act together right now. Grr.
We've had fabulous weather this week. As I'm writing, I'm riding the train to Munich, admiring fertile farmland basking in the sun. The chill of autumn was in Belgium and is here in Germany. The leaves are starting to turn. It's chilly at night, but not cold yet. It makes for daytime rambling through Belgium and the Netherlands very pleasant. Munich's forecast is equally welcoming.
Next Stop: Munich
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